Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/143

 Rh of Kant that every man is an end in himself is a claim that there is something so special in the possession of human qualities, that it entitles men to stand on a plane of equality one with another. This claim has been associated with Socialism, and its critics have thereupon started on many a mad wild-goose chase after their own shadow. They even believe that they have run the thing to earth. For it is asked, How can men be equal? Equal in what? And so on.

What do Socialists mean by equality? They mean that the inequalities in the tastes, the powers, the capacities of men may have some chance of having a natural outlet, so that they may each have an opportunity to contribute their appropriate services to society. The co-operation of unlikes and inequalities in the production of a harmonious whole is the Socialist's view of the perfect community; at the same time it is his view of the only equality which human nature has ever sought. This is not an aim which can be reached at a given moment in life. It means that at stage after stage in the development of a personality opportunities should be given to it to advance in certain directions, so that in the end the man of artistic imagination may not find himself bound behind a grocer's counter, or the youth of mathematical genius be sent as a "little piecer" to a Lancashire cotton mill.

Consequently, the purpose is generally stated as being to secure "equality of opportunity." Every child starts with every door open in